Call Waiting: Hearing and Answering God's Call on Your Life

Chapter 1

Down with Dualism

Doug Wallace loves to take a risk. You might say that he knows when to hold
’em and when to fold ’em. He’s not a bad poker player and enjoys the game, but
that’s because he has a gift for managing risk. He has done bungee jumping and
scuba diving and for several years owned a motorcycle. Those activities may
not qualify him as a big risk taker, but one aspect of risk management is knowing
just how far you can go toward the edge, then backing off. His calling, as he
sees it, is to apply this gift to the business of making money and to use it
to advance the kingdom of God.

Doug was brought up in a working-class family in a cinder-block house in
Baltimore. His father worked in the shipyards and Doug found work there in the
summer. He went to Case Western University on a full scholarship and discovered
his gift there while playing poker. After college he got a job in a bank where
he met John, who would become a lifelong friend. Neither one of them had the
temperament to work in a bank, so they opened a shop and began managing a portfolio
of other people’s money, by doing arbitrage on the bond market. They did so
well that after five years they closed the operation, and, in response to what
they had been learning about Christianity, attended classes for a year at a
Christian study center. There, as new believers, they began to build a view
of the world that included the purpose of work and of making money.

Eventually they both went to work for a bank, managing the bank’s investments.
They did well, again, but, feeling restrained with the bank’s limitations to
make quick decisions—so necessary in the kind of investing they were doing—John
left and in time went to work for several investors in Texas. Doug stayed where
he was living in Richmond, Virginia, but when the bank was sold, he had the
opportunity to move to Atlanta and make more money. After consultation with
Joanne, his wife, he decided he was supposed to stay in Richmond.

He toyed with the idea of becoming an investment advisor, but he had tried
that before and learned that it took 90 percent marketing skills—not his gift—and
10 percent investing ability. So, still in his forties, he was left with the
question, “What am I supposed to do? I have these skills and experience and
I enjoy making money for the use of God’s kingdom, so what should I do?”

Doug was a member of a young, growing church, and he saw an opportunity to
help the pastor, so he signed on as a volunteer to assist the pastor using his
administrative and analytical skills. Doug knew that church-related work was
not a higher calling than that of nonchurch workers, but he might have been
seduced by the modern dualism that says that church-related work is “ministry,”
unlike so-called “secular work.” It turned out to be six months of frustration
with little joy or feeling of reward. “I felt no success, joy, competence, or
vision for doing it,” he recalls. So, a sad but wiser man, he left the church
to wait on God to learn what he was supposed to do.

“I wasn’t on a quest,” he says. “When I was younger I might have given myself
thirty days to find my place. I knew the Lord would lead me when he was ready,
so I settled in to wait. I had a good friend whom I had been advising on financial
matters just as a friend. He had just sold his company and went from saying
casually, ‘Why don’t you manage my money?’ to, ‘Would you please manage my money?’

“It became clear to me that here was a way to use my skills and serve the
Lord. This friend has the ability to make money, and he’s a very generous man
who can provide a lot of support for the advancement of the Kingdom. My role
is to alleviate his concerns about his finances and expand his understanding
of biblical stewardship. I’ve learned that there are others out there with that
ability, but it doesn’t feel satisfying to them at times. They need to understand
that they have a place in God’s economy as ‘givers.’” Since then Doug has found
a few more folks there who have the same understanding of biblical stewardship,
and he now has a comfortable practice as a registered financial advisor.

“Most people are afraid of risk,” he says, “and I probably fall off the horse
on the other side. But that’s what I do. I’m not about picking stocks or managing
your investment return. I’m about managing your risk. Many people would like
to go through life without taking a risk, but we can’t. We’re forced to manage
risk, family or financial.”

Doug’s philosophy of stewardship has given him peace where others have chewed
their fingernails. “After 9/11 when the stock market was closed, Joanne and
I went on a two-week camping trip. I had done my best in managing my clients’
assets. If God wanted to take it all away, so be it. It’s his money. It’s not
ours to fret over.”

The dualism that Doug bumped into when he went to work at the church is,
unfortunately, prevalent in our society. It says that life is divided into the
sacred and the secular and that the sacred is a higher realm. The pastor or
the missionary is “called to ministry,” but the banker or the line supervisor
or the engineer, this view implies, just has a job. The latter may or may not
enjoy what they do, and they can certainly live for God on the job, but they’re
not called in the same way as those who are engaged in “full-time Christian
service.”

For Doug, it meant that he had to learn what it meant to minister in the
marketplace, which initially was a bank. First that meant doing the best job
he knew how as a risk manager. “Next it was a matter of building relationships,”
he recalls.

Sacred Versus Secular

Unfortunately, in evangelical circles today we use the term ministry loosely.
We say, “So-and-so is going into the ministry.” We talk about “laypeople” as
opposed to “ministers.” This further confuses a concept that is already misunderstood
and reinforces this false dichotomy. We are all called to ministry of one form
or another. In his book Called to the Ministry, Edmund Clowney writes, “Clearly
the member serves best who does heartily what he is given to do as a good steward
of the grace committed to him. There are no useless gifts of grace; there is
no Christian without a ministry.”1

Quaker theologian Elton Trueblood put it this way: “The ministry is for all
who are called to share in Christ’s life, but the pastorate is for those who
possess the peculiar gift of being able to help other men and women to practice
any ministry to which they have been called.”2

In her biography of Sam Shoemaker, I Stand by the Door, Helen Shoemaker wrote,

We often behave as if God were interested in religion but not in life—in
what goes on in church, but not what goes on in a mill or on a farm or a broker’s
office. This point of view overlooks something. It forgets that Christianity
began, not when religion got carried up farther into the skies, but precisely
when it was brought “down to earth.” It has often been called the most materialistic
of all religions, because it is constantly concerned, not only with a God above
the skies, but with a God who came to earth and lived here. . . . Jesus coming
into the world has forever banished the idea of the incompatibility of material
with spiritual things. I say without hesitation: there is nothing more “spiritual”
or holy about going to church than about going to the office, if you go to both
places to serve and obey God.3

Dorothy Sayers is quoted as saying, “In nothing has the church so lost her
hold on reality as in her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation.
She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments . . . she has
forgotten that the secular vocation is sacred.”4 A vocation is sacred because
it comes from God, not because it accomplishes a certain amount of good for
God. The famous Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper, who at one time was also the
prime minister of the Netherlands, wrote, “There is not one square inch of the
entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, ‘This is mine!’”5

Unfortunately, many Christians in the marketplace believe that it’s not sufficient
to serve God by doing the best job they can, by being the best physician or
investor or chemist they can possibly be. They insist on seeing their workplace
as a fishing pond for Jesus, a place to find souls who need God. Sometimes this
takes the form of passing out literature or seeing who they can engage in God-talk
at the watercooler. Actually, in so doing, they might be stealing their employer’s
time, which doesn’t please God. We don’t have to believe that God put us in
a particular place for any other reason than to do the best job we know how
and thus glorify him. He doesn’t give us a quota of souls we have to witness
to, like so many pieces of metal we have to stamp out on a machine. He is pleased
if we live as his children on the job.

Ron Hansen, a novelist, has tried to inject themes of faith into his stories
and has done a masterful job at it. Yet he wrote, “What is good in itself glorifies
God because it reflects God. The artist has his hands full and has done his
duty if he attends to his art. He can safely leave evangelizing to the evangelists.”6

This doesn’t preclude attempts to minister to people and to testify to our
faith in God if it falls naturally into our work pattern. In this book you’ll
read the story of Bonnie Straka, a dermatologist who often engages her patients
in discussions of matters of faith. Bill Stuntz, who teaches law at Harvard,
often speaks to on-campus Christian organizations. Tom Miller, a chemist, does
not find much opportunity to discuss his faith, but his coworkers know he is
a believer and he glorifies God by being a good chemist and caring for his coworkers.
Each one sees himself or herself called to serve God, not as a preacher but
as a professional in a particular field.

Serving God in the Secular

Many fine Christians have fallen into the trap of viewing their God-given
vocation in the marketplace as secular and, further, placing it on a level slightly
lower than that of the church worker. It almost happened to none other than
the great abolitionist William Wilberforce. His story demonstrates that a biblical
view of calling and work can have a profound effect on the world.

Late eighteenth-century England was known for its intellectual life. It spawned
such great thinkers as Alexander Pope, John Locke, John Newton, and Edmund Burke.
England was also at that time a thriving society with a growing empire and a
command of the seas, and was the setting for the beginning of a revolution in
manufacturing and industry. London was the commercial and political center where
politicians, literary men, and merchants met at coffeehouses and taverns to
exchange gossip and discuss the business of the Empire.

William Wilberforce was born into this society in 1759, the son of a highly
respected, well-to-do merchant in Hull, Yorkshire. He was born with weak eyes
and a weak physical constitution. He was slight in stature with a long nose
but with an amazingly strong voice and an active mind.

When he was eight his father died and his mother, not well at the time, sent
him to live with his aunt. There he was exposed to Methodists, or Enthusiasts,
as his mother called them. John Newton, the former slave ship captain-turned-preacher
and the author of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” was among those who befriended young
William.

However, the Methodists were feared by the established church and society,
so William’s mother took him away from his aunt and made sure to “scrub his
soul,” as someone put it, of all Methodist influence. Thus cleansed, William
went off to Cambridge where he spent more time playing cards, singing, hosting
dinners for friends, and drinking than he did studying. He loved the company
of good friends and was an outstanding conversationalist.

Toward the end of his college days, he became interested in politics and
made a run for a seat in Parliament, representing his hometown of Hull. In Parliament
he renewed his acquaintance with William Pitt the Younger whom he had known
at Cambridge. He rose quickly, his intellectual skills were recognized, and
he soon became known as an outstanding orator. When Parliament was not in session
he spent considerable time with William Pitt, often at a summer home or traveling
with him to France on one occasion.

Then came the big change in the life of William Wilberforce. About to embark
on a trip to Europe in the summer of 1784, and wishing to have an enjoyable
traveling companion for conversation, he invited his former tutor, Isaac Milner.
Unbeknownst to Wilberforce, Milner, while a man of the world in intellect and
interests, was an evangelical.

While in Nice, Wilberforce came across a book entitled The Rise and Progress
of Religion in the Soul. He asked Milner about it, and Milner recommended that
he take it with him and read it. The two men read the book together as they
traveled, Milner knowing that it was a reasoned exposition of Christianity.
The book had a great impact on Wilberforce, who at this point was a practicing
Unitarian. Later in the trip as he discussed the book with Milner, who presented
a strong intellectual argument for Christianity, Wilberforce began to see the
truth in it.

Intellectually honest to the core, Wilberforce was forced to spend long hours
meditating on his discoveries and reading the Scriptures. Conversion came slowly,
but soon he began to make changes in his worldly lifestyle, and in spite of
the potential political liability, he sought out his old friend John Newton.

To explain his conversion, he also wrote to and met with his other friend,
William Pitt, now a leader in Parliament. It was at this point that Wilberforce
fell into the trap that many still fall into today. He told his friends that
he felt he could best serve God in “sacred” rather than “secular” activities
and, thus, he would have to leave politics and, perhaps, take up holy orders.
Fortunately, for the world, both Newton and Pitt constrained him and argued
that God had placed him where he could do immeasurable service that he could
not do otherwise. Thus convinced, he wrote to his mother that it would amount
to desertion if he left his post in Parliament, and he told his sons years later
that he had devoted the rest of his life to the service of God.

Many years before this great change, Wilberforce had become interested in
the question of the slave trade that England carried on. His interest had waned,
however, in the face of other pressing issues, but with a new outlook on the
world, on October 28, 1787, he wrote in his diary, “God Almighty has set before
me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation
of manners.”7 John Newton also helped to convince Wilberforce to take up the
cause of the slaves. Newton had been the captain of a slave ship before his
conversion, and he knew the horrors of the practice.

But the slave trade was woven deeply into the financial fabric of eighteenth-century
England, and, fueled by greed, it would prove a stubborn foe. Slave ships left
England loaded with cheap manufactured goods and arrived in West Africa where
the goods were exchanged for slaves. The slaves were taken to the West Indies
where they were exchanged for sugar, which was brought back to England for an
enormous profit.

The story of Wilberforce’s fight against the practice is long and takes many
twists. That same year, William Pitt, now the prime minister, persuaded Wilberforce
to take the leadership in bringing the matter to Parliament. Wilberforce was
not in good health and his efforts brought him near death. He began talking
about retiring from public life, but once again Newton persuaded him otherwise.
This time John Wesley added his voice, writing to Wilberforce in 1791, “Unless
God has raised you up for the very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition
of men and devils; but if God be for you, who can be against you?”8

Wilberforce continued to lead the charge, and twenty years later, after fierce
opposition and continual struggle, on February 3, 1807, the House of Commons
voted to abolish the slave trade by the overwhelming majority of 283 to 16.

Wilberforce now turned his attention to the other great object God had set
before him—the reformation of the morals and manners of eighteenth-century England.
The struggle took the form of many projects to suppress vice, help the poor,
provide education, and encourage religion. He gave liberally from his own fortune
to help many individuals and societies and saw hundreds of voluntary societies
spring up for the betterment of England.

Meanwhile, although the slave trade had been abolished, slavery itself was
still legal and Wilberforce refused to rest as long as it was practiced. His
strength, however, was giving out when, on July 26, 1883, the House of Commons
voted to emancipate all the slaves. Wilberforce died three days later.

For us in this book, the point of Wilberforce’s life is clear: had he removed
himself from public life, believing that he could serve God better in a church
vocation, the world would have been so much poorer for it. By the grace of God,
he rejected this false view and continued to serve God in a so-called “secular”
place. Who can measure the effect that decision had upon the world? Even his
contemporaries recognized the value of what he had done and honored him by burying
him in Westminster Abbey. The nation mourned his passing.

To Ask Yourself and Others

1. Think of several Christians you
know who work in what we call “the marketplace.” How are they serving God
in that place?

2. Can you think of occupations in
which you can see no possibility of serving God?

3. If you know of an occupation that
interests you for the future, ask yourself how you might serve God in that
work.